DreamWorks
For the bulk of every Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, moose and squirrel would engage in high concept escapades that satirized geopolitics, contemporary cinema, and the very fabrics of the human condition. With all of that to work with, there's no excuse for why the pair and their Soviet nemeses haven't gotten a decent movie adaptation. But the ingenious Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman are another story, intercut between Rocky and Bullwinkle segments to teach kids brief history lessons and toss in a nearly lethal dose of puns. Their stories and relationship were much simpler, which means that bringing their shtick to the big screen would entail a lot more invention — always risky when you're dealing with precious material.
For the most part, Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman handles the regeneration of its heroes aptly, allowing for emotionally substance in their unique father-son relationship and all the difficulties inherent therein. The story is no subtle metaphor for the difficulties surrounding gay adoption, with society decreeing that a dog, no matter how hyper-intelligent, cannot be a suitable father. The central plot has Peabody hosting a party for a disapproving child services agent and the parents of a young girl with whom 7-year-old Sherman had a schoolyard spat, all in order to prove himself a suitable dad. Of course, the WABAC comes into play when the tots take it for a spin, forcing Peabody to rush to their rescue.
Getting down to personals, we also see the left brain-heavy Peabody struggle with being father Sherman deserves. The bulk of the emotional marks are hit as we learn just how much Peabody cares for Sherman, and just how hard it has been to accept that his only family is growing up and changing.
DreamWorks
But more successful than the new is the film's handling of the old — the material that Peabody and Sherman purists will adore. They travel back in time via the WABAC Machine to Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War, and 18th Century France, explaining the cultural backdrop and historical significance of the settings and characters they happen upon, all with that irreverent (but no longer racist) flare that the old cartoons enjoyed. And oh... the puns.
Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman is a f**king treasure trove of some of the most amazingly bad puns in recent cinema. This effort alone will leave you in awe.
The film does unravel in its final act, bringing the science-fiction of time travel a little too close to the forefront and dropping the ball on a good deal of its emotional groundwork. What seemed to be substantial building blocks do not pay off in the way we might, as scholars of animated family cinema, have anticipated, leaving the movie with an unfinished feeling.
But all in all, it's a bright, compassionate, reasonably educational, and occasionally funny if not altogether worthy tribute to an old favorite. And since we don't have our own WABAC machine to return to a time of regularly scheduled Peabody and Sherman cartoons, this will do okay for now.
If nothing else, it's worth your time for the puns.
3/5
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WENN/DC Comics
If you thought the Internet had strong feelings about Ben Affleck playing Batman, just wait until you hear the latest news about Batman Vs. Superman. Warner Bros. announced on Friday that Jeremy Irons is set to step into the impeccably shined shoes of Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler, and that Jesse Eisenberg will take on the role of Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor. The news comes as a surprise, since the studio was recently rumored to be considering older actors like Bryan Cranston and Joaquin Phoenix for the role, but according to director Zach Snyder, casting Eisenberg allows them to explore the "interesting dynamic" between Lex and Superman as well as allowing them to "take the character in some new and unexpected directions."
Rather than relying on strength or superhuman powers, Lex Luthor has always used his superior intellect, vast amounts of wealth and high social standing to challenge Superman, and has been his most significant adversary since the 1940s. The character is often portrayed as a mad scientist type, and spends a great deal of time inventing and developing weapons to take down his rival, as well has playing a major part in the creation of several other Superman villains. He is considered to be one of, if not the smartest character in the DC universe, which has helped him in the various career changes that he had undertaken of the years, from scientist to multinationalist to President. In the press release, Snyder described Luthor as "a complicated and sophisticated character," who "exists beyond the confines of the stereotypical nefarious villain," making him one of the most interesting super villains in comic book history.
All of which brings us to the obvious question: Can Eisenberg pull this off? We decided to look at both sides of the debate, in order to see where this casting will go right, and where it might go horribly wrong.
WHY WE'RE IN FAVOR
The actor is best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in The Social Network, where he played Mark Zuckerberg, who was characterized in the film as an incredibly smart, incredibly rich, arrogant jerk — all of which are traits that can be applied to Lex Luthor. Eisenberg has a great deal of experience playing harsh, unlikeable characters, and has proven that he can keep unlikable people from becoming unwatchable, as well as showcasing the different perspectives and experiences that made them they way they are. The best super villains have those shades of grey, and allow the audience to sympathize with them, even when they are doing despicable things. Casting Eisenberg as Luthor proves that Snyder is looking to create a villain whose motivations the audience can understand, and who can exist outside of the black and white world of good and evil.
Eisenberg can also play menacing, and play it well. The courtroom scenes in The Social Network are a perfect example of his ability to be both threatening and dismissive, able to stand up for himself and to ignore the people and things that he doesn't deem worth his time. Luthor famously believes everyone else in the universe to be less intelligent, and therefore less important, than himself, and those are character beats which Eisenberg has experience playing. Even in the film Now You See Me, he is able to convey a sense of menace towards the police officers who are interrogating him. His character is by turns bored, annoyed and threatening, culminating in the moment where he provokes the officer just so he can outwit him and handcuff him to the table. Luthor needs to always seem like he's thinking several steps ahead of everyone else, and Eisenberg gives off the impression that he is constantly out thinking everyone around him.
Eisenberg has mastered the unblinking stare, which he uses often whenever his characters are attempting to intimidate or outsmart the people around him. In those moments, he is excellent at conveying both challenge and threat. He wants you to make the first move, just so that he can make you regret it, and that's a quality that he will be able to bring to Luthor's showdowns with Superman. The two characters are perpetually engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse, with Luthor using intellect to make up for what he lacks in brawn. Superman needs an opponent who seems like he is genuinely scary, and who has a contingency plan for every move that he makes in order to heighten the suspense of their fights. If Luthor can't physically fight Superman, he needs to use the skills he does have to become a genuine threat, and Eisenberg can pull that off.
Plus, he seems like the kind of kid who would become a mad scientist. Eisenberg gives off the impression that he was the nerd who everyone picked on in school, until he decided to take over the world and make them regret it. He seems like the kind of person who would remember every slight, every insult and every backhanded compliment that anyone ever paid him, and used it a fuel to become the most powerful man in the world. Snyder hasn't revealed how much of Luthor's backstory will be featured in the film, but there's likely going to be some reference to the incidents that cause him to turn evil. Eisenberg will be able to portray both the pain and the rage that make up who Luthor is, and he'll be able to sell it in a big speech.
If you actually take a moment to think about Eisenberg and the characters he's chosen in the past, the decision to cast him makes a lot more sense. Sure, he doesn't look anything like the Luthor in the comics, but there are very few actors who are able to play the "surprisingly menacing nerd" better than he can. If Snyder wants a grittier, darker superhero film, he's going to need a villain who feels realistically terrifying, and Eisenberg is just the guy to pull that off.
WHY WE'RE WARY
There's no doubt that Eisenberg will be able to pull off the "menacingly smart" aspects of Lex Luthor, but the character was more than just an evil scientist. He ran a major multi-national company, he ran for and held public office, and he was a power player in high society, and all of those things require a great deal of charisma to pull off. The only way that Luthor would be able to convince so many people to vote for him or help him carry out is plans is by being charming enough to balance out the arrogance that comes with his brains. Eisenberg doesn't exude that kind of charisma, which makes it hard to picture him being able to balance both his career as a super villain and his responsibilities as a member of society. Can you picture Eisenberg running for public office? Not really. Can you picture him charming his way through business meetings? Still no. Intellect and confidence can only take the character so far, and unless Snyder is planning to drop these aspects of Luthor's life, then it might be difficult for Eisenberg to capture him properly.
That's not to say that Eisenberg doesn't give of any charm whatsoever; in fact, his more comedic roles have it in spades. But his charm is less the confident, engaging charisma that we would associate with a politician or a CEO, and more the kind of bumbling awkwardness that makes his characters so endearing and hilarious. That kind of charm simply won't work for Luthor, as it will undermine the authority and gravitas that a proper super villain requires, but since we haven't seen anything else form him yet, it's hard to picture Eisenberg effortlessly winning people over with a well-timed joke.
Then, there's the issue of his physical appearance. Let's start with the obvious: Lex Luthor is bald, Eisenberg is the opposite. In fact, his hair has become something of a trademark for him, and as a result, it is incredibly difficult to envision him without any hair. However, it's an important and iconic trait of the character, serving as both an easy way to identify him and as a reminder of the backstory that spawned his lifelong hatred of Superman. Whether they shave his head or give him a bald cap, Eisenberg is going to have to go bald one way or another, and it doesn't seem like it will work for either the actor or the character. It's hard to imagine Eisenberg bald as anything other than a goofy visual gag, but Luthor needs to exude confidence and gravitas despite his lack of hair. It's the character's signature, the thing that defines him and makes him stand out, and there's no way that will work if the actor portraying him looks goofy and weird without any hair.
Luthor is also meant to be physically imposing, which, coupled with his intelligence, allows him to intimidate everyone around him. He's usually tall and broad, and despite not possessing any sort of superhuman strength, he usually looks like he would win in a fight. Eisenberg is not particularly intimidating. Sure, he would likely best you when it comes to witty comebacks, and he could easily destroy someone's psyche in a few sentences, but there's no way that anyone would watch him fight Henry Cavill and feel any kind of suspense as to the outcome. He also tends to give of the impression that he's slouching, which makes him seem smaller and more nervous that he might actually be. Despite actually being a confident person, Eisenberg doesn't often let that come across, and so the impression that people get from him is one of awkwardness and anxiety, and neither of those things will help him hold his own onscreen with Cavill and Affleck.
Let's face it: if the villain isn't imposing or intimidating in some way, then it becomes clear that the hero will win, and there's no point to following the story. Eisenberg definitely doesn't look like he could take anyone in a fight, which makes it hard to imagine him in a showdown against Superman. It seems as if Snyder is interested in exploring all of the aspects of Luthor's character, not just the super intelligence, but it's hard to picture Eisenberg being able to portray anything else.
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Columbia Pictures
January is a time for Top 10 lists of the previous year, for catching up on holiday releases that you somehow never got around to seeing, and for recommending the only flick that's just edgy enough for one of your parents but not too risque for the other (scratch Wolf of Wall Street off that list). In any of these practices, you're bound to consider American Hustle, director David O. Russell's 2013 follow-up to Oscar contenders Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter. Surely, even if you've somehow put off seeing the film, you've happened upon some decidedly lavish advertisements. The very first thing you're likely to have noticed upon scanning the Hustle posters or watching the trailer: the hair. But a second glance might awaken quite an interesting realization about the movie's all-star cast... especially for fans of the superhero genre.
Not only have each of the main players taken high, if not top, billing in a major superhero release (or, in the case of Bradley Cooper, one on the way), but a good number of the supporting actors have history in the genre as well.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Superhero: Batman, natch. More synonymous with his DC character than any of the other American Hustle stars are with their respective comic book roles, Bale redesigned Bruce Wayne with filmmaker Christopher Nolan, graduating from the property after trilogy capper The Dark Knight Rises.In American Hustle: Bale plays the schlubby but charismatic Irving Rosenfeld — a working class con artist who manages to work the magic of deceit with a strange air of earnestness.Powers in Common: Deception. Bruce Wayne spends his days cavorting, schmoozing, hobnobbing, elbow-rubbing, and other gerunds exclusive to the very rich. All the while, he's masking his true identity. Irv obscures his hidden intentions all throughout Hustle, living up to a Wayne-like standard of secrecy.
AMY ADAMS
Superhero: Lois Lane, who, though not a superhero in the traditional sense, is the de facto sidekick of the most iconic comic book legend of all time (Superman) and a force to be reckoned with in 2013's DC release Man of Steel. Adams will return as Lane in the forthcoming Batman vs. Superman, opposite Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, respectively.In American Hustle: Adams plays Sydney Prosser, a.k.a. Lady Edith Greensley — a colossally powerful con artist at frequent odds with her own quest to forget who she really is.Powers in Common: Working people over. In Hustle Sydney/Edith is able to permeate the minds and hearts of everyone she meets. In Man of Steel, Lois Lane is the only Earthling (save maybe for a long deceased Jonathan Kent) who can get through to the lonely ol' Kryptonian Kal-El. Adams does have that charm.
BRADLEY COOPER
Superhero: Rocket Raccoon. Technically Cooper hasn't played him yet, but he's slated to voice the animated live-wire in this summer's Marvel release Guardians of the Galaxy.In American Hustle: Cooper deals in Russell's special brand of emotional volatility with FBI Agent Richie DiMaso, prone to explosive bouts of "passion" (let's call it what it is — lunacy), such as fussing with partner/rival Irv's immaculately prepared toupee or beating the hell out of his own boss at the agency.Powers in Common: Unpredictability. Fans of the Guardians of the Galaxy comics recognize Rocket Raccoon as a bit of a wild card among the interplanetary heroes. You can easily say the same for DiMaso, whose hair-trigger temper gets him in a bit of (though not nearly enough) trouble.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Superhero: Mystique, the pupil-deficient X-Men villain. Lawrence plays Mystique and her alter ego, Raven Darkholme, in 2011's X-Men: First Class and the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past.In American Hustle: Lawrence plays Rosalyn Rosenfeld, Irv's hot-tempered, "free spirit" wife who just can't quite seem to stop setting things on fire, and loves the smell of a good rotting nail polish.Powers in Common: Funnily enough, Rosalyn is one of the only people in this movie not employing some metaphorical sort of shape-shifting (Mystique's signature ability). But the character's propensity for interloping the communities of kingpin criminals and persuading them to do her bidding does ring true for the X-Men villain.
JEREMY RENNER
Superhero: Hawkeye, the Zeppo Marx of the Avengers Initiative.In American Hustle: Renner plays good-hearted politician (go figure) Carmine Polito, who bends the law in order to afford his New Jersey community the funds it needs to thrive.Powers in Common: They're both straight-shooters!
It's not only the central five who have superheroic roots. Renner's screen wife Elisabeth Röhm was a recurring player on the fourth season of NBC's Heroes. Hustle mafioso Jack Huston had a role in the sci-fi epic Outlander. Cooper's FBI boss Louis C.K. wrote and directed Pootie Tang (it's kind of a superhero movie...). And Michael Peña has gone on record saying he'd like to work with Robert Rodriguez to develop a Mexican superhero flick. As you can see, Russell's movie runs deep with super powered blood... and the costumes are flashier than your standard cape-and-tights get-up to boot.
American Hustle is now open in theaters everywhere.
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Local officials in the U.K. are moving forward with plans to mark the spot where Rolling Stones legends Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first met in 1961. The pair struck up a friendship after spotting each other on a platform at Dartford train station in Kent, England and they went on to form the Rolling Stones in 1962.
Officials from the town council have spent years planning a way to memorialise the meeting point, and they have now confirmed a plaque is to be erected on the platform of the newly revamped station.
Council leader Jeremy Kite says, "We have wanted to put up the plaque for some time but it seems sensible to wait until the new railway station was up and running.
"Dartford really does have a rich, hidden history. We're a town that changed the world in terms of great inventors, pioneers, and, of course, great musicians. It's a great story and I'd love to see a permanent exhibition to compliment our traditional heritage."

Columbia Pictures
The opening scene of American Hustle — a loud, loquacious, upper-fueled romp through the avenues of high stakes swindling — plays somewhat like a Buster Keaton short. We watch a schlubby Christian Bale fumble (with as much delicacy as someone can, in fact, fumble) with a greasy combover and a dime store toupee, laughing at the small scale physical comedy and learning more than you'd expect about Bale's con man character Irving Rosenfeld before we even meet him or hear him speak.
But there is nary a silent moment in the two-and-half hours to follow. Its people speak in explosions. The passions are dialed all the way up between Irv, his accomplice and girlfriend Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), and the venemous FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) who rangles the pair into the biggest heist of their career. There's no tranquility in the waters of their high-stakes operation to take down a New Jersey mayor, the Italian mob, and quite possibly a few of the dirtier suits in Congress. When things proceed like clockwork, we're talking diving pendulums and cuckoo birds darting from every crevice. Naturally, it's all the more fun when things go awry.
And, of course they do. It wouldn't be a heist movie without a few cogs springing loose. But the beauty of American Hustle is in its undoing. From start to finish, Irv and Sydney are pros at the game. They leave no stone unturned in pulling the wool over the eyes of every deadbeat, mafioso, and active senator that finds his unlucky way into their eyeline. Even the misguided improvisations of Cooper's control freak lawman don't serve to uproot the plans from their course. We don't suffer through a dropping of their guard or an overlooking of important details. Everything that goes wrong in this movie is embedded in character.
The follies, screw-ups, and mutinies are all emotionally charged, inspired by romantic rivalry, ego, flights of affection, and the ribald distate that so many of these people have for each other. Everything in this big, flashy, high-stakes movie is personal. It's a toxic, burning love/hate/envy/longing/attraction/friendship/enmity between every conceivable pairing in this dynamic cast of rich, strong, uproarious characters that fuels the movie and drags down the scheme at its center.
Columbia Pictures
And just about everyone we meet is dragged into the maniacal nucleus by the arms of anxious passion. Irv's spitfire wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) outranks the lot of her company in the screws-loose department, stirring the pot of her unfaithful husband's business dealings as soon as she crosses the threshold into his world. The psychopathically dutiful Richie (Cooper) sees anyone who tries to temper his occupational obsessions as the enemy, even his pragmatic Midwesterner boss (Louis C.K.). And at the head of the race is Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), unaware of his place in this tremendous game but coursing at top speeds on an engine of his democratic heart nonetheless. The characters are all operating at 11, and most of the actors are able to keep up.
As Irv, a uniquely undesirable Bale is a laugh every minute. We enter this world through him — a world of accessible lies, of rough-and-tumble New York streets, of Long Island parties, of Duke Ellington, of hairpieces, of dry cleaners, of only conning the men you can stomach the idea of laying to waste — and have a terrific time walking in his footsteps. Always just out of reach is Adams as Sydney, who cons herself just as often as she does Richie, Irv, and the poor saps who fall for her seductive act. Bale and Adams are the standouts of the cast — playing their hearts on their sleeves and tucked away tightly, respectively — so it's good fortune that most of our time is spent with one or the other.
The power players from director David O. Russell's last effort, Cooper and Lawrence, shine a bit dimmer here — Cooper plays Richie as petulant, misguided, and teetering on the edge, but he's undercooked beside the far meatier material presented by Bale and Adams. Lawrence, while not without her moments, never seems to commit altogether to the loon that is Rosalyn, alternating between too reserved and too outlandish to really make the character feel like somebody. But the biggest surprise of the lot might be Renner, who has more fun as his Jersey boy Carmine than he ever has onscreen. But in earnest, some credit goes to the hair.
It's the electricity of American Hustle that keeps its long narrative from dragging. We have fun with the characters, the performances, and the colorful world itself. The movie never insists that we feel anything beyond that, but offers a few bites of some authentic empathy for Irv and his kind nonetheless. So we can dip into the bustling character work that Bale and Adams are mastering, Cooper is handling, and Lawrence is just falling shy of delivering on, but we're free to latch onto the life preserver of this movie's output of comedy. There's so much to laugh at in American Hustle, and some wonderfully molded characters to do all your laughing with.
4/5
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HBO
“Call me Helen Keller because I’m a f**king miracle worker.”
Does this sound like anyone you know? If you guessed Kenny Powers from EastBound and Down, you’re very, very, very wrong. For those of you who guessed Ari Gold from Entourage, correct! The group of friends are together again and slated to start production on the Entourage movie.
There have been rumors that this movie was going into production for quite some time now. The reason for the delay? The real life Ari Gold, Jeremy Piven, began with a larger deal than the other actors, Kevin Connolly, Jerry Ferrara, Adrian Grenier, and Kevin Dillon. It seems that the deal has been settled and everyone has kissed and made up.
To express our excitement we have collected a few of Ari Gold’s best and worst one liners. Read on -- but beware, they are sure to offend!
“Nobody’s happy in this town except for the losers. Look at me, I’m miserable, and I’m rich.”
“Vinnie, when you get married you realize that a wife is like a herpes sore. She comes and goes when and where she pleases.”
Quite possibly the most beneficial life lesson Ari Gold has taught us, “Well, life isn’t fair. So don’t f**king cry about it.”
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Lions Gate via Everett Collection
When we last left our heroes, they had conquered all opponents in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, returned home to their newly refurbished living quarters in District 12, and fallen haplessly to the cannibalism of PTSD. And now we're back! Hitching our wagons once again to laconic Katniss Everdeen and her sweet-natured, just-for-the-camera boyfriend Peeta Mellark as they gear up for a second go at the Capitol's killing fields.
But hold your horses — there's a good hour and a half before we step back into the arena. However, the time spent with Katniss and Peeta before the announcement that they'll be competing again for the ceremonial Quarter Quell does not drag. In fact, it's got some of the film franchise's most interesting commentary about celebrity, reality television, and the media so far, well outweighing the merit of The Hunger Games' satire on the subject matter by having Katniss struggle with her responsibilities as Panem's idol. Does she abide by the command of status quo, delighting in the public's applause for her and keeping them complacently saturated with her smiles and curtsies? Or does Katniss hold three fingers high in opposition to the machine into which she has been thrown? It's a quarrel that the real Jennifer Lawrence would handle with a castigation of the media and a joke about sandwiches, or something... but her stakes are, admittedly, much lower. Harvey Weinstein isn't threatening to kill her secret boyfriend.
Through this chapter, Katniss also grapples with a more personal warfare: her devotion to Gale (despite her inability to commit to the idea of love) and her family, her complicated, moralistic affection for Peeta, her remorse over losing Rue, and her agonizing desire to flee the eye of the public and the Capitol. Oftentimes, Katniss' depression and guilty conscience transcends the bounds of sappy. Her soap opera scenes with a soot-covered Gale really push the limits, saved if only by the undeniable grace and charisma of star Lawrence at every step along the way of this film. So it's sappy, but never too sappy.
In fact, Catching Fire is a masterpiece of pushing limits as far as they'll extend before the point of diminishing returns. Director Francis Lawrence maintains an ambiance that lends to emotional investment but never imposes too much realism as to drip into territories of grit. All of Catching Fire lives in a dreamlike state, a stark contrast to Hunger Games' guttural, grimacing quality that robbed it of the life force Suzanne Collins pumped into her first novel.
Once we get to the thunderdome, our engines are effectively revved for the "fun part." Katniss, Peeta, and their array of allies and enemies traverse a nightmare course that seems perfectly suited for a videogame spin-off. At this point, we've spent just enough time with the secondary characters to grow a bit fond of them — deliberately obnoxious Finnick, jarringly provocative Johanna, offbeat geeks Beedee and Wiress — but not quite enough to dissolve the mystery surrounding any of them or their true intentions (which become more and more enigmatic as the film progresses). We only need adhere to Katniss and Peeta once tossed in the pit of doom that is the 75th Hunger Games arena, but finding real characters in the other tributes makes for a far more fun round of extreme manhunt.
But Catching Fire doesn't vie for anything particularly grand. It entertains and engages, having fun with and anchoring weight to its characters and circumstances, but stays within the expected confines of what a Hunger Games movie can be. It's a good one, but without shooting for succinctly interesting or surprising work with Katniss and her relationships or taking a stab at anything but the obvious in terms of sending up the militant tyrannical autocracy, it never even closes in on the possibility of being a great one.
3.5/5
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Lionsgate
Pick up your bow and arrow, because archery is having a major pop culture moment. Thanks to the popularity of The Hunger Games, archers are cooler than ever before.
But Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen isn’t the only pop culture hero (or heroine) reaching into a quiver. Here are the five coolest archers we love who are currently sparking an archery revolution.
Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)People of all ages started flocking to archery lessons after Katniss Everdeen burst onto screens in The Hunger Games. Why? Because Jennifer Lawrence made archery look really, really cool. As a competitor in the cut-throat Hunger Games, Katniss could bring one weapon along into the kill-or-be-killed reality show. Her choice was her trusty bow and arrow, perfected from years of hunting in the wilds of District 12.
Hawkeye (The Avengers)Sure Iron Man might have his special suit and Thor might have his hammer, but Hawkeye still manages to be awesome with just a bow and arrow as weapons. Played by Jeremy Renner in the box office smash, Hawkeye is a force to be reckoned with even when fighting against powerful aliens with just an arrow.
Green Arrow (Arrow)Speaking of Arrow, it turns out archery is a pretty popular superhero trait. As the lead of The CW’s hit superhero show Arrow, Stephen Amell plays rich boy Oliver Queen, who has a more than passing knowledge of how to notch an arrow. He uses his alter ego Green Arrow to fight crime and get revenge on the corrupt leaders of Starling City.
Princess Merida (Brave)In Disney’s hit animated film Brave, Princess Merida doesn’t want to sit around and be a proper lady. Instead she would rather run around shooting arrows, and she certainly has better aim than all of the boys around her. Thanks to Merida’s bravery and talent, she manages to avoid getting betrothed to anyone she doesn’t want and saves her family from an inconvenient curse. All while having the best hair of any animated character ever.
Legolas (The Lord of the Rings)The original archer, Orlando Bloom’s bow-wielding elf will return in the next Hobbit film to hit theaters. We’ve known since The Lord of the Rings trilogy that Legolas and his archery skills were cool, now he’s returning to remind us.
What do you think? What other cool archers did we miss? Sound off in the comments!
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What's your damage, Lindsay Lohan?
LiLo appears to give that question an answer as disaffected, super-mascaraed socialite Tara in Paul Schrader's epic fizzle of a film The Canyons: her damage is something to be exploited for drama (certainly by Lohan herself) as if she were a kind of latter-day female Dennis Hopper. The only problem is that she doesn’t possess any of Hopper's jittery, live-wire spark, his inventory of manic quirks. What you get from Lohan in The Canyons is energy-sapped ennui that looks like a bad parody of an Antonioni movie starring people who've never actually watched an Antonioni movie. There's no train-wreck appeal in seeing The Canyons. Only boredom and the dawning of a final realization that our inexplicably enduring interest in Lohan far surpasses her actual talent.
Schrader, and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho), make their agenda in The Canyons clear in its title. It's the topographical and moral opposite of The Hills. The MTV show was glammed-up meaninglessness about hot young things buying stuff and getting into petty squabbles. The Canyons also focuses on hot young things (one of them, James Deen, a real-life porn star!), but to reveal the dark, even psychotic, moral decay at the center of their lives.
Deen's Christian is another of Ellis' sociopathic twentysomething trust-fund brats — Patrick Bateman with a smartphone. He films himself and others having sex with his girlfriend Tara (Lohan), who he plans to cast opposite a naïve Hollywood newcomer named Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk) in a movie he's about to start shooting. He's young, rich, and has nothing better to do, so why not make a movie? Who cares if he has no idea how to make one?
On the side, Christian keeps another bed partner, Gina (Amanda Brooks), who he has sex with but violently refuses to kiss. Like everything in the movie, Schrader and Ellis' ideas are abundantly clear and on the surface: Christian wants instant gratification but not intimacy, and it's hard not to see him as their shallow commentary on the millennial generation as a whole. Schrader deploys a dizzying array of distancing devices to keep us at bay, including the projection of neon lights on Deen, Lohan, and Funk's nubile bodies during a group sex scene that has "Razzie Nomination" written all over it.
The web of trysts between these four characters is pretty complex, and on the surface it seems none of the characters possess any emotional investment in their hook-ups. But, of course, they really do. Like the characters in one of Schrader's favorite movies, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game, they've actively tried — and failed — to deaden themselves emotionally in order to deal with the meaninglessness of their lives. Finally, an eruption of violence shatters the love polygon once one of the characters decides that he can only find meaning in petty jealousy. These are people who, like Renoir said of his characters at the time of The Rules of the Game's 1939 release, "dance on the edge of a volcano." The only problem is that, unlike in Renoir's film, this is a volcano that produces no heat.
Schrader started as a film critic until making the jump in the mid '70s to screenwriting (The Yakuza, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) and then directing with Blue Collar and Hardcore, the latter an acid portrait of a father devastated when he discovers his daughter has become a porn actress. He followed up Hardcore with American Gigolo. These were dynamic depictions of the intersection of sex, money, and morality. But Schrader's always had a clinical streak, and he's shown throughout his career a penchant for having great ideas but not knowing how to dramatize them, for being able to deconstruct movie tropes like a critic without being able to reassemble them for emotional satisfaction. He was as washed up as Lohan when he got around to making The Canyons, and together they've made a film that has us wondering why we ever cared about them in the first place.
Lohan wears her hair up in a bun and equips herself with ridiculous bangle jewelry, as if she's just stepped off the set of Liz &amp; Dick. Deen, an actor who's better at "doing" than speaking, seems to recite his lines phonetically. And Schrader's direction feels like that of a UCLA sophomore with a running bar tab at the Chateau Marmont. It's utterly lifeless.
The moral rot of Spring Breakers is given pungent urgency by all that neon and Skrillex — you get caught up in the girls' crime spree and are even implicated in it yourself, because that film throbs with life. The Canyons doesn't even have a pulse. It's not so bad it's good. It's not destined to be a camp classic. It certainly will do nothing for Lohan's career. It's just bad. All it has going for it is an apt title that applies to the movie itself: a place you fall into until you hit rock bottom.
0/5
What do you think? Tell Christian Blauvelt directly on Twitter @Ctblauvelt and read more of his reviews on Rotten Tomatoes!
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You'd think most actors would at the chance to even get a part in an epic comic book film, but things might be different for the upcoming Avengers sequel. According to a new report, negotiations for the film are turning into a Hollywood-style Hunger Games. And, man, it seems like a real challenge to get the odds to be ever in your favor.
A recent report from the folks over at Deadline portray the ongoing negotiations between Marvel Studios and its actors to be fraught with tension over the reprising thespians' worth versus company secrecy and parsimonious behavior in the name of profits. Naturally, skepticism about the lack of transparency is troubling for many, as Marvel is owned by the publicly traded Walt Disney Company, meaning its books are up for the scrutiny of the masses. See why the Internet likes public knowledge so much? Internet loves scrutiny.
It all begins with Robert Downey, Jr, as most interesting things do. RDJ has been playing the media circuit game of late in order to promote his latest work with the renowned comic book house, Iron Man 3. The film has already made him $35 million in its first 12 days out; a number that will only continue to rise and may bring Downey his biggest cinematic payday yet. Now that its contract renegotiation time, though, Downey's been hinting that retirement might be on the horizon for Tony Stark unless Marvel comes back with some enticing numbers. In Hollywood, getting money is a complicated tango to say the least. But Downey is reportedly not just dancing for himself, but for all of his Avengers costars.
Deadline purports that Marvel and Disney have yet to finalize several cast members' salaries (which includes, for some: upfront pay, backend compensation, break even and box office bonuses) — including lynchpin Downey. Considering the impressiveness of the cast roster (Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L. Jackson), such a feat sounds majorly costly. No doubt causing Headache City, population: Bob Iger. The Walt Disney Company's Chairman and CEO has been obsessive in his push for Avengers 2 for at least a year, so it seems logical that the company will want to tie these loose ends up sooner rather than later.
Ultimately, it sounds like the biggest hurdle to jump has an almost philosophical quality to it: when it comes to epic, franchise films such as Avengers and its spawn, how much are the actors who portray these superheros worth? Marvel claimed its break-even number was astronomically high ($1.1 billion, globally) for Avengers, a point that Deadline questions with a quote from a rep to Marvel executives Kevin Feige and Louis Esposito, stating "If Avengers wasn’t profitable until then, why would you make it?" Certainly a question worth asking, especially in today's marketplace.
One response is: well, these movies make money. And not just Monopoly money: real, serious business money. In the first three days alone, Iron Man 3 made $195.3 million, doing the seemingly impossible by beating out The Avengers' $185.1 million global opening weekend take last year.
But still, The Avengers was a film where some of the main actors reportedly received relative pennies (about $200,000) compared to Downey's $50 million. Hemsworth was allegedly low-balled with a $1 million pay-out (pending the acheivement of a $500 million box office break-point) even though he'd previously received $5 million for his work in Snow White and The Huntsman. But is the opportunity that being in a Marvel universe production worth the pay cut? Downey doesn't seem to think so. From the report:
"He's the only guy with real power in this situation. And balls of steel, too. He’s already sent a message that he's not going to work for a place where they treat his colleagues like s**t," one source explains. Another rep tells me, "I have four words for Marvel – 'F**k you, call Robert.'" As Downey himself has said publicly about his $50M-plus payday, "I’m what’s known as a strategic cost," adding that Marvel is "so pissed" he earned that much."
So is Marvel doing these actors a favor, being stingy with their profits, or simply operating a business in a fiscally conservative but lucrative manner? The seeming disregard for certain actors or parts that have become associated with the properties themselves is no doubt disconcerting — but is it any different from what most of us normals have to go through on a daily basis? Jobs come and go, people are cut or underpaid regardless of how integral their work is or how ingrained the association is between the worker and the work all the time. Often, huge personal sacrifices must be made in the name of opportunity and the like — that's just 2013. Is Marvel's profit share skewed and seemingly unfair? Yeah, sure, okay. But while for Hollywood this all is quite Hunger Games-esque, for most people reading this, the first thought is ultimately: jeez, rich people problems.
Follow Alicia on Twitter @alicialutes
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